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Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Sulayyail

Sulayyail is the community 50 kilometres north east of Wadi Dawasar and at slightly higher elevation. It is also where our hotel was last weekend. So all our birding in this area was done early in the morning as we set off or in the early evening on return.

hypocolius

It was actually in the town itself that we stopped briefly late on Friday to inspect the bulbuls we could hear to see which species they were. To my surprise the bulbuls of the palm plantations and urban bushes are white-eared bulbul and not the white-spectacled bulbul of the west side of the country.On turning round from looking in some palms for bulbuls I picked out a better find in a garden tree. There were three hypocolius.

white-eared bulbul

This was another bird which was out of its range according to the maps in the regional guide. They were too far south west.

immature red-backed shrike

For the third weekend running and in three very different parts of Saudi Arabia I came across an immature red-backed shrike.

Spanish sparrow

While it is only a little further north then Wadi Dawasar itself, some species were only seen there and no further south. For example the huge roaming flocks of sparrow in the farms of wadi Dawasar were house sparrow yet there were some Spanish sparrow in Sulayyail. Ironically the roaming flock behaviour is more typical of the latter species.

Eastern mourning wheatear

In Wadi Dawasar, the main wheatears were northern wheatear, Isabelline wheatear and desert wheatear (though one white crowned wheatear was seen).

In Sulayyail, the same three wheatears were observed but also one Eastern mourning wheatear and one red-tailed wheatear were seen too. The latter two birds have their main wintering grounds further north and east.Sulayyyail was also the only place we saw a hoopoe lark.

A pallid harrier

In common with Wadi Dawasar was the prevalence of pallid harrier as the main wintering harrier species. The pictures above and below are two different male pallid harrier flying over the same field.

A second pallid harrier in the same field

Again like Wadi Dawasar, there were several Asian grey shrike about.

Asian grey shrike (aucheri)

The European roller seen at a farm close to the town of Wadi Dawasar was not a fluke. A second one was seen at a farm close to the town of Sullayail.

European roller

Though there was hardly any previous data, the trip was every bit as rewarding as I had hoped it would be.

Another fox. This time near Sulayyail.

My only regret is that we didn't see any vultures or rarer eagles though locals suggested the area just north of Sulayyail might be worth visiting for them in the future.Below is a list of all the species seen over the weekend.